Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examination - Controversies

Controversies

For some years there have been controversies surrounding TNPCEE.

• The first one was the wrong questions asked in the question paper which occurred two years in a row.
• The next one is the discarding of the TNPCEE marks for the admission for the academic year of 2005-06 by the Tamil Nadu Government. This was later reversed by the court and TNPCEE marks were taken into consideration.
• The Tamil Nadu Government deciding to scrap the TNPCEE from the academic year 2006-07 and base admissions into professional courses solely based on the Class 12 examinations. This was reversed by the Madras High Court and the Tamil Nadu Government has appealed in the Supreme Court and its judgment is awaited. The ostensible reason is to create a level playing field for the rural students. The Government claims that urban students have an edge in the Entrance Examination. Almost all the major political parties, the most vociferous being the Pattali Makkal Katchi party, are against TNPCEE.

The Class 12 Board Examination is insufficient when it comes to ranking the students. Many students obtain the same marks and to break the tie it was suggested that date of birth be used. If the date of birth were also to match lots would be used (In 2005-06 when the TN Government discarded TNPCEE marks this happened). This would certainly cause heart-burn among the students. TNPCEE is conducted to reduce the probability of many students obtaining same marks.

In the year 2005, an attempt was made by the erstwhile Tamil Nadu government to revoke TNPCEE pattern of engineering admissions. Tamil Nadu government, based on the reservation policies, defended that the admission be made solely on the 12’Th standard marks. This brought a lot critics attention who warned that would abysmally lower the engineering education since Plus 2 examinations tests mostly of a student's memory retention whereas TNPCEE tests the student's problem solving capabilities. High court of Chennai quashed this idea of admission. Hence the TNPCEE admission system is back in vogue.